"We went to the gym today, but we didn't do anything except sit down and stand up to sing O Canada and even the big kids were in the gym and then we went back to our classroom."

"There is a time out chair and I have never had to sit in it, but another boy sits in it all the time"

"I have used the bathroom a few times."

"I worked on my tree craft today."

Yeah... so. I guess I am happy that he is loving kindergarten, but I really would love it if my son told ME all this other stuff! I need a new communication strategy to get him to be more vocal with me!

29 comments:

OK yea Lou... good luck with this one... My kids very rarely talk to me about their days. Sometimes if something really fun happened they will but most of the time its : How was your day?" "Good" and thats all...

I found in JK I had to ask very specific questions. Like who did you play with today. What books did you read. Did you have gym? What did you do in gym? Seems to help them remember that they actually packed a whole lot into that wee day!

I can totally relate. Cash hardly tells me anything it come in spurts! I tried to do "I will tell you 3 things about my day and then you tell me 3 things about yours" only thing I really got was we ate lunch-duh!

I make something up, like "how was playing with the kitchen at school today?" Then he will stop and think and say, "I didn't play with the kitchen." and then I say, "oh, yeah, today you went to the library" and he will say, "no today, we throwed up and down bean bags in the gym."

I also ask specific prompts, who sat beside you at snack today. What station did you work at today? Did you play on the structure today? If your teacher sends home notes about the books they read, then you can ask "what did that crazy pigeon do today? Did he drive the bus again?"

Haha, same thing happens at my house with my 3 year old daughter after pre-school. On the other hand, my 12 year doesn't TAKE A BREATH about the he-said, she said- goings on at school...so maybe it's an age thing?!!

Yep, you'll always have to instigate the conversation otherwise they won't tell you a darn thing worth mentioning...in the case of my 3 yrd old "what did you do today" and the response EVERYSINGLE time is "I learned the ABC's"...my 7 yr old is to busy playing the Wii and conveniently "forgets"...that's why I love the weekly newsletters we get via email..I ALWAYS know!

Well - I can't speak from experience since I'd be thrilled for my son to be able to have a conversation like that with ANYBODY. BUT I do think that what everyone else is saying about how you have to ask all of the specific questions sounds pretty right on when it comes to kids. If you get a piece of information out of him on Monday, then follow up with an update question on Tuesday.

Questions like 'Who did you sit next to at lunch?' 'Who.what did you play at recess?' 'What project are you doing in art?' Etc. I find 'Who is the worst/best in class' gets them going and of course 'what is the funniest thing that happened today?'

After 3 kids I learned never to ask anything when they just walk in the door! I let them get their snack, play or watch TV and once they've had a bread from school (usually at the supper table) we ask "What was the best thing about their day at schoo?". They love to tell you when they have an audience and if it hasn't been great they tell you too! We usually take turns talkig about our day-all of us! Very "Leave it to Beaver" but it works for us!

I just found out from my son's pre-K teacher that he, uh, "relieved himself" on the fence during gym class! Of course, he didn't mention a WORD about it to me!! Oh, well, future blog material, I guess.